


Command Performance

by Polly_Lynn



Category: Castle
Genre: Angst, F/M, Family, Family Secrets, Reconciliation, Reconciliation Sex, Romance, Separations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-12
Updated: 2016-01-14
Packaged: 2018-05-13 09:36:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5702953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polly_Lynn/pseuds/Polly_Lynn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“There’s no question that she’s going. That she has to go, but she’s had voicemail, email, and mail mail on top of all that from desperate people low on the totem pole who just want to know if they should put her down plus-one.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Set a few weeks post-Mr. & Mrs. Castle (8 x 08), so spoilers up through that, though I know nothing about what’s to come. Unconscionably, I’m using an idea of Cora Clavia’s for a story that she won’t want to read. Should be a 3-shot.

 

 

She’s been ignoring it for weeks. Months, probably, given the scale of things. The size of the pile on top of it in her _to-do_ tray. The RSVP date must have long come and gone, though that hardly matters. She’s had voicemail, email, and mail mail from higher ups noting that attendance is mandatory for precinct captains. Pointedly noting that anyone thinking of opting out will need a note from their mortician. 

 

There’s no question that she’s going. That she _has_ to go, but she’s had voicemail, email, and mail mail on top of all that from desperate people low on the totem pole who just want to know if they should put her down with a plus-one. 

 

She hasn’t responded at all. Not because she’s indifferent. Quite the opposite. She has post-traumatic-wedding-that-didn’t-happen disorder. Nightmares about Martha’s frenemies burning the venue to the groundbecause all the space they’d carefully placed between them wasn’t enough. About her Aunt Theresa insisting on delivering a powerpoint presentation featuring intimate stills of her and Castle from 3XK’s surveillance set-up

 

She’s not indifferent, she’s in denial. She’s _been_ in denial since she slammed back into her body that first unspeakable night. Right here in the middle of her office with a bag filled with God knows what. Since she’d mechanically started to chip away at the mountains of work that had managed to accumulate in just a few days and the thick envelope on top. 

 

_The New York City Police Department cordially invites you and a guest . . ._

 

She handles it now. Digs it out from the bottom of a pile that never gets any smaller and runs her finger over the sleek border around the elegant, slanting text. She understands it now. How it’s been a talisman. A fetish with every terrible instinct she has wound around it. 

 

She runs her finger over the date and hears her own voice, out loud more often than not, telling lies. 

 

_By then. Long before then. It’ll be done by then._

 

She picks up the phone. It’s Saturday night, pushing into Sunday, but the harried young man picks up no the first ring. 

 

_“Captain Beckett!”_

 

“Yes.” She’s thrown. Embarrassed and belatedly aware that she’d really been counting on voicemail. “From the twelfth. I’m calling about . . .” 

 

_“The gala,”_ he supplies. _“Thank you so much for getting back to me. We’re just about to finalize seating, and . . .”_

 

“I’ll have a plus-one.” 

 

She hates how easily her brisk tone masks the guilt. Hates that she’s piling on the grief she’s already caused this poor guy, but she wants this done. Settled, before every terrible instinct rises up again to undo the progress she’s made. They’ve made. 

 

_“Of course.”_ He rolls smoothly with the interruption, then hesitates. _“And the name for the place card . . . ?”_

 

She pictures him wincing at the question mark as it tumbles out. She’s sorry for him. He’s just trying to do his job and he doesn’t deserve this. The sharp lash of her tone, but she’s not about to explain that she’s angry with herself. She’s not about to explain that this is crazy and stupid and dangerous, but she’s doing it anyway. 

 

“Richard Castle.” She presses a fingertip to the card stock. Blots out two words. _A guest._ “My husband will be joining me.” 

 

* * *

 

“Is it a good idea?” 

 

His fingers stall halfway down the buttons of her blouse. It drives her insane. The hesitation and the wary look. The fact that his hands aren’t on her. She yanks at his shirtfront, trying to lead by example. 

 

“It’s a terrible idea.” She bites down hard on his shoulder as soon as the skin is bare. “But it’s done.” 

 

“It’s _done?_ ” 

 

He doesn’t bother with the rest of the buttons. He pushes the silk down her arms and gathers the fabric in one fist at the small of her back. It jerks her elbows into her sides and arches her spine. It holds her fast. Keeps her in place as he looms above her, his head brushing the roof of the stupid surveillance van they’ve parked out in the ass-end of nowhere to steal an hour together. 

 

Less than an hour, and now he’s angry with every right to be, and she doesn’t know what the hell compelled her to even bring it up. Here. Now. She doesn’t know if she’s still sabotaging them. If her worst instincts are still driving her, even after everything. 

 

“Your name’s on the place card.” 

  
It’s something he’d say. A ridiculous, out-of-left-field objection that makes him laugh. Makes him kiss her hard and tighten his hold to let her know that she’s not quite forgiven. That they’re not done talking about this, even though he's pushing her skirt higher and higher with his free hand.

 

“Well,” he breathes as his hand glides up her thigh and back down to her knee. As he tugs hard to lay her out beneath him and pins her with the weight of his body. “A _place card._ That’s settled, then.” 

 

* * *

 

 

“It’s because of Christmas?” He sweeps the hair from her neck to press his lips to the skin. She’s stalled in reverse. Halfway through the same damned buttons. Doing them up again, because the hour is spent. “Because of that picture . . .” 

 

“Not because of that.” She lets her hands drop. She braces her palms on the makeshift pallet they’ve thrown together and twists awkwardly to face him. She ducks her head to nip at his jaw. To force his eyes up from her half-open blouse and the bra that she just might have chosen for the occasion. She drags her own mouth up to his. “No one’s fault.” 

 

“Mmmmm.” He nips back, catching her bottom lip. “We’re not lying anymore, remember?” 

 

He’s smiling at her. Looking for all the world like it’s one lie he doesn’t mind, but she doesn’t work like that. She’s all or nothing. She swivels on her knees, bringing her whole body around to catch his hands. 

 

“Not lying.” She kisses one palm, then the other. Guides them both to either side of her face and looks him in the eye. “The picture wasn’t your fault. And I’m not asking you . . .” 

 

“Asking.” He raises an eyebrow at her. He’s not really angry. That’s as spent as the hour neither of them could really afford, but he’s . . . adamant. All or nothing in his own way about what is and isn’t a lie. 

 

“I didn’t ‘ _commit_ you to the damned thing without asking’ ” — she rolls her eyes when he gives her a wounded nod of acknowledgement — “because of some stupid picture.”

 

“Why, then?” He asks quietly, and she knows he doesn’t want to. She knows he wants to say yes. To take every inch for them her paranoia will allow. But he asks anyway, and she loves him all the more for it. “It’s a risk.” 

 

“I know it’s a risk.” She closes her eyes, memorizing the feeling of his thumbs drifting over her cheekbones with infinite care. “It’s a terrible idea. But I want you with me.” 

 

* * *

 

It’s not about the picture. It really isn’t, and it wasn’t the night she picked up the damned phone to reply. He knows that. She’s _told_ him that, and he believes her. He knows better, but the picture _is_ out there. A grainy, long-lens snapshot of the two of them holding hands at Christkindlmarkt. Smiling at each other with their heads bent together in a neighborhood they thought would be low profile enough. 

 

But it wasn’t. So it’s out there, and he’s worried about it. They both are every time it shows up again with the same warmed-over buzz. Musings on the muse and her estranged writer, complete with cutesy phrasing and an excess of question marks in the caption: _Heat rekindled??? Holiday heat???_

 

They’re both worried that it’s managed to undo whatever little, sour-tasting good that might have come from those weeks apart. Weeks she left him alone and in the dark, and it’s his idea. 

 

_“Being seen in public together at a high-profile event like that . . .”_ He trails off. Spools up to the next part carefully. So carefully. _“It’s an opportunity to . . .”_

 

She doesn’t answer. Can’t make herself, even when she hears the sigh on the other end of the phone. 

 

_“Kate. It is.”_

 

I know it is,” she says at last, resigned and hollowed out. “I don’t want it to be.” She closes her eyes, but the ceiling pulses, backlit, against her eyelids. “I want it to be . . .” 

 

_“It’s that, too. It’s that for us.”_ His voice is warm. He’s pouring it on. Not lying, because they’re not doing that anymore. But working on her. _“But for everyone else? It makes sense to be careful. To play up the professional angle . . .”_

 

“If you say ‘spin’ or ‘narrative,’ I’m hanging up.” She rolls to her back on the rock-hard mattress and scowls up at the shitty, off-white ceiling she hates a little more every day.

 

_“No you’re not.”_ He’s smiling. She can _hear_ him smiling, sure of himself. Sure of her.

 

“No, I’m not,” she says anyway, because she _wants_ him to be sure She’s grateful that he can been. That it’s his nature to be sure, even after all this time.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "The day rolls around, and she's caught between finally and too soon from the well-before-dawn moment she gives up on sleep for good. She's caught between all day long as the clock moves too fast and too slow and too fast again."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set a few weeks post-Mr. & Mrs. Castle (8 x 08), so spoilers up through that, though I know nothing about what's to come. Unconscionably, I'm using an idea of Cora Clavia's for a story that she won't want to read. Should be a 3-shot.

 

The day rolls around, and she's caught between _finally_ and _too soon_ from the well-before-dawn moment she gives up on sleep for good. She's caught between all day long as the clock moves too fast and too slow and too fast again. She chips away at the hours. She's planned for that much, and she signs and crumples and notes and tags her way through one of the piles she'd scooped off the corner of her desk.

It's a fraction of the infinite number of things that need catching up on. That always need catching up on, and it does the trick for a while. It speeds the clock along, and it's all not quite mindless enough to keep her gaze off the phone. Off the door and the street she can't see anyway, with her scenic brick-wall view. It's not quite mindless enough to leave her victim to schemer's remorse.

For a while, anyway. She gives in to the urge to start on the evening too early. She ignores the clock and cranks on the shower. She steps into the shallow fiberglass tub, and she's nervous by then. Too well and truly nervous to linger, even if the volatile temperature and water pressure made lingering a good idea. She's too nervous to turn her back to the spray and let the limited run of hot water pound some of the knots from her neck and shoulders.

It's just as well, she thinks as she runs the rough towel methodically up one leg and down the other. Long showers—decadent, lingering showers—have the richness of his voice stirring in her ear and her skin shivering toward his phantom touch. They put her too much in mind of him. Too much in mind of what she's missing and what they have to lose. But she's not thinking that way. Not tonight.

But her eyes drift to the weak, late afternoon light coming in through the gap in the tacky curtains as she tucks the towel around her, and it's nowhere close to night. She's started too early, and there's little enough to do for the hours and hours yet to come. She sits down hard on the bed. Hard enough to send few of the micro-piles she's assembled crashing back together. Progress undone in an instant, but before she has time to make the minor disaster out to be an omen, there's a knock on the door.

She's on her feet in an instant. The towel drops. She grabs her gun and the first thing that comes to hand—a button-down of his she's been using in lieu of a robe. She slips her arms in as silently as she can, swapping her gun from hand to hand as she glides closer to the door to listen.

The knock comes again. Louder this time, and a woman's voice follows. A clipped, pissed-off string of words.

"I know you're in there. Just open up. Let's get this over with."

* * *

 

"Sorry. I'm _sorry,"_ Alexis murmurs as she slips through the door. "I'm early and someone was passing at that end of the hallway, and they probably wouldn't recognize me, but just in case, I thought I should . . ." She breaks off, noticing the gun Kate has pressed to the side of her thigh as she scans up and down the hallway before closing the door with a solid _thunk_. Her eyes go wide for half a second, but she recovers " . . . thought I should definitely not show up early, unannounced when you're . . ." She gestures at the sad little room. At the still-full luggage Kate's been living out of. "I'm sorry," she finishes, obviously kicking herself.

"No. Alexis." She slides the security bar home again."That was a good play in the hallway. No names." She nods, mentally reviewing the scene and trying to tamp down her own worry. Pushing away pernicious guilt for piling the risk of all this even higher by asking for help to surprise him. "It's . . . " She looks down at herself, arms crossed to hold together the still-unbuttoned shirt, her gun resting not-so-casually in the crook of her elbow. " . . . fine."

The girl's face splits mercifully into a grin. Nothing's fine, really. But the two of them are here, scheming. Working together to make the evening about them—their marriage and their family— and awkward as it is, it's something that would have been unthinkable three weeks ago. Something Kate's been trying not think of as _still_ unthinkable all day. But they're here now, and it's all or nothing.

"Alexis, I can't thank you enough . . ." She moves across the room, suddenly aware of just how not conducive to entertaining the space is. The desk chair is a nightmare and the overstuffed things flanking the low table by the window are worse. She thinks about sweeping the bed clear all at once. Undoing her already-half-undone piles, but that might look like pressure to stay, and this isn't necessarily a social call. The two of them might be _here_ , but they're not necessarily _there._ "Did you have any trouble finding . . ."

The hiss of the garment bag zipper stops her mouth. She turns to find it hooked over the top of the accordion door to the tiny kitchenette. Alexis pushes the slick black housing aside, laying bare the deep red fabric that catches even the dismal light of the room and sends it back out as something more beautiful.

"No trouble," Alexis says quietly. Her fingers glance over the bodice. She smiles to herself, and Kate's heart clenches. She hears the whisper of uncomplicated words from all those years ago. _You look incredible_. "It was right where you said it would be. But the wrap you had. The pretty cream one with the seed pearls . . . ?"

Kate shakes her head. "Smoke damage. The cleaners couldn't get the smell out."

"The bomb. Your apartment." She slips a fold of the fabric through her fingers, fascinated and horrified. "It's amazing this survived."

"It is," Kate agrees and wonders if she should leave it at that. But it feels like a half truth, so she goes on. "That's part of why I wanted it for tonight."

Alexis nods, more to herself than anything, but the heavy mood breaks. The years of near-misses scatter in the face of reverence for the moment and the possibilities open ahead. She has her father's gift for that and gives Kate a sly look over her shoulder. "And because it's gorgeous?"

"That too." She grins, taking in the dress from top to bottom. It really is gorgeous.

"Oh! I almost forgot. You may not have your wrap, but . . . ." Alexis digs in her coat pocket. She produces a flat, white box with a flourish. "For you. Gram insisted."

"Martha. Her garnets." Her hands shake as she reaches for the box. Another memory. The impossibility of saying no to Martha Rodgers. Embarrassment gets the better of her. Regret and the certainty that she doesn't deserve this. "Alexis, this is all . . . I'm really sorry to put you out." She spies the clock face, frowning as she remembers suddenly that they'd settled on later. Quite a bit later. "You must have somewhere to be?"

The question falls flat between them. It takes the almost-pleasant fizz right out of the air. Kate opens her mouth to apologize, but Alexis leaps into the breach.

"No. Nowhere." Her eyes close, just briefly, but long enough to be a reminder that this is hard. That there's anger just beneath the surface. Frustration at still knowing only part of the story. Part of what's going on, but she's trying, and if it's more for her dad's sake than anything, Kate will gladly take it. "I just . . . Tonight's important to my dad. And it must be important to you." The words are a little grudging—something she should believe, but doesn't quite. Still she softens as she reaches out for the dress. She twists the hanger so the back shows. The dizzying zigzag of laces. "And you're not gonna get yourself into this, so I thought . . . I thought maybe you'd like some help getting ready."

"I would." Kate practically runs over the end of her sentence, as much from eagerness to meet her halfway as to keep herself from blurting something ungracious. Something she doesn't mean. "I'd really like that."

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Not the most scintillating chapter, but this is how the middle developed. I'll try to put the last chapter up tomorrow (Thursday). Thank you again for reading and your support. Only just realized that I hadn't indicated this has multiple chapters when I posted the first. I'm sorry if anyone averse to WIPs started this, thinking it was complete.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "She arrives alone. It's part of the plan. A part she's quickly inclined to think of as really, really stupid, because he's good at this and she's not. Because she wants this to be about them, and it's not."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Final chapter. Set a few weeks after Mr. & Mrs. Castle (8 x 08), though not based on any spoilers for the post-hiatus season

 

She arrives alone. It's part of the plan. A part she's quickly inclined to think of as really, really stupid, because he's good at this and she's not. Because she wants this to be about them, and it's not.

She walks the room, trying not to second-guess everything from the dress to the more dramatic look she's gone for with her hair and make-up. It's black tie, and the gown is classic, but there's a not-so-subtle divide between the more conservative, masculine-leaning looks on her female colleagues and the splashier numbers sported by the wives and girlfriends who far outnumber them.

She weaves in and out of knots of people she knows and doesn't know. Either way—known or unknown—they all go too quiet, then too loud as she approaches. It's nerve wracking. Infuriating for any number of reasons, but she goes through the motions on her own. She shakes hands and pretends not to notice how many introductions involve people looking right past her. Right over her shoulder, as though her famous husband might materialize.

And then he does. There's a sudden, too-possessive hand on her hip. A sudden, too-hearty apology for being late, and she doesn't have to play at consternation. She doesn't have to feign stiffness as she lifts her cheek to meet his lips, because he's not late. Not according to the plan.

The plan was for her to do the cocktail hour solo. To put herself through the flesh-pressing part of the evening, making excuses for him all the while. Assuring anyone who asked that they must've had a miscommunication. That he'd surely be there for the speeches and seated dinner. The plan was for her to sell the estrangement. To sell the evening as little more than a public appearance for the sake of her career.

But he's here, peeling his arm from around her just long enough to shake hands with some starry-eyed wife of someone she really couldn't care less about. He's here.

"I'm sorry. Would you excuse us?" She breaks right into the woman's gushing review of the latest Derrick Storm. "Rick and I haven't had a chance to touch base . . ."

She lets the words trail off to carry whatever implication they will, and the quiet fury simmering underneath the smile she flashes at Lieutenant and Mrs. Whoever isn't an act. It's an alternative to throwing herself at him. An alternative to a little violence and not a little want.

Because fury and desire have always gone hand in glove for them.

Because the sight of him in a tux has always been enough to bring her to her knees.

Because he never gets the bow tie quite right without help, and the thought of him dressing alone in their room cuts deep.

Because she's never been so glad he can't stick to a plan to save his life.

The double-edged truth of the last though catches in her throat. She doesn't wait for a reply from the couple. She doesn't wait for any kind of graceful exit. It's an accidental save when she turns on a heel and jerks him along with her. An accidental performance when she shoves him though a pair of doors and out on to a Juliet balcony hardly wide enough for the two of them.

"I'm sorry." He only just waits for the heavy curtains to swing back in place, shielding them from view, before he's wrapped around her. Before his lips are burning over the skin of her shoulder and his broad hands are spanning her back, welcome, blessed warmth between her and the frigid air. "I know. I was supposed to wait. "

"Why didn't you?" She groans against his chest, too relieved to really be frustrated. Too worried to let herself really be relieved. "Castle, it was your idea to . . . we agreed . . . "

He steps back. Holds her out at arm's length, though there really isn't any room.

"I saw you," he says, awed. Overcome, and she feels her own face light up. Feels her skin flush with pleasure, despite the cold. "The red carpet. They're posting pictures." He trails his fingers along the arc of the necklace. Smiles at the pretty combs winking in the ridiculously complicated up-do Alexis had managed. He folds his arms around her, again, tight like he's managed to miss her in the last five seconds. "I saw you and I couldn't wait"

* * *

 

He's good at this. The party and the plan, and she hates the hour she suffered through without him, because he's good. He flirts a little too hard. He's courtly and over-the-top with first wives, low-voiced and edgy with the younger, late-in-life upgrades. He hangs back a little too long with the boys, clinking glasses and talking big.

He plays the role to perfection. He's everything she thought he'd be the first time she wore this dress. Self-important. Brash. Loud and utterly superficial. And in between—in stolen moments and hidden touches—he's everything she knows him to be. Observant. Playful. Sweet and fiercely protective. Fiercely proud, and it kills him to walk away from the hundred slights—verbal pats on the head and sidelong glances at her cleavage—that are so much an everyday part of the Old Boys Club she's long since learned to let them roll off her.

But he does walk away. He acts the bored playboy and wanders off for another drink. And if he's not exactly grateful for the out, she has to admit it's good for the act. The way it builds the the tense armor around him. Every time she pointedly doesn't watch him go, every time she makes a slightly shame-faced apologies and trails after him if the conversation's bad enough to peg her own meter.

It's all well and good, so far as the plan goes. It's practical, and by the time they sit down to dinner, she'd swear it's official. She'd swear there's not a soul in the room romantic enough to doubt that however they might have started out, the two of them have an arrangement, not a marriage.

The plan is a success. A dismal, unqualified success.

* * *

 

There's dancing after dinner. Someone whose pay grade she can't even see from her vantage point announces the group like they're a cookie being thrown to the assembled company for sitting more or less politely through a handful of droning speeches.

She looks for him when the music starts. Not at all bad big band arrangements of standards. She tries to look for him, but she's newly popular. Castle's late arrival has revived the interest of a dozen or so people from the early crowd in meeting her.

He's newly popular, too. Surrounded by a bright, sparkling sea as husbands drift off to the bar or the bathroom or just outside for some air, trying to delay the inevitable. She watches him slip away from one obvious invitation to dance after another. Sees him nod in her direction with an apologetic what can you do look as he plucks heavily ringed fingers from his elbow, his shoulder, and once, with difficulty, from actually inside his tux jacket.

It puts a crack in his facade. Their eyes meet, and she see too much that's familiar. Weariness and frustration. Longing. It's enough. The whole room suddenly sounds like whispers around her. Furtive looks from him to her and back again in the low light and it's enough.

"Excuse me," she says loudly. It's abrupt enough that the older man she's talking to bristles visibly. She overcorrects in her haste to get away. She drops a heavy hand of her own on his sleeve and draws a hard look from his wife. "Both of you. Would you please?" She blushes on command. That and the chastened smile she flashes seem to mollify them both. "I think my husband . . . " She lifts her chin toward the edge of the dance floor where Castle hasn't quite extricated himself.

"Of course, dear." The woman lifts Kate's fingers from her husband's jacket. She sends her off with a shove the might have little to much oomph in it. "You go keep that young man out of trouble."

"That's the plan." Kate flashes another apologetic smile as she goes. As she whispers the words to herself all over again. "That's the plan."

* * *

 

"Sweetheart!"

His voice booms out, high above the music and the chirping array of women around him. It's far too loud, and so obviously relieved that she almost wants to laugh. Almost, but sweetheart hangs sticky-sour in the air between them. It's not something he calls her. It's not something she calls him, though it's good for this last bit of stage business.

"Rick."

She pitches her voice lower, arching an eyebrow. Outwardly, she's every inch the long-suffering wife correcting the husband who's far too prone to overindulge. He takes the cue, knotting his hands behind his back like he's used to getting caught.

She pivots to place herself pointedly between him and the woman he's yet to shake off. She flashes him a smile so brief and heated no one else in the world would register it. He does, though. He answers with a feather-light brush of fingers where the vee of the dress dips lowest. With a rough, meaningful tug at the trailing laces.

"Kate Beckett, Captain of the Twelfth." She thrusts her hand toward the woman, forcing her back one step, then another. She answers the late-in-lifer's dubious, annoyed look with a grip that's more than a little bone crushing. She drops it one beat past emphatic and turns back to him. "Rick." She gives him a smile that's all teeth. Fierce for the crowd and something not entirely different for him. He swallows hard. "Everyone's dancing."

She flicks a glance toward the center of the room, and mercifully, it's true. Mercifully, the top brass seem to have accepted the fact that they need to lead by example, and the parquet dance floor is filling steadily.

"Everyone," he repeats. "Well, Captain," — he leans into the title, and that's something for the crowd and something not entirely different for her, too — "then I guess we should do our duty."

They're silent in each other's arms, both more overwhelmed than they'd bargained for. In each other's arms it's harder to balance on the pin's head of what they are and what they ought to seem to be. He recovers first. Or breaks maybe. It's hard to tell the difference.

"This is agonizing." He grazes her ear with his mouth, stumbling a little for show.

She stiffens, her fingers going white against the black of his jacket. "I'm sorry . . ."

"No," he cuts in, turning them too swiftly for the music, so they're at odd angles to most of the crowd. He risks brushing her cheek with his own. "Don't be sorry. A little agony . . ."

He lifts an eyebrow. She turns her face away and presses her lips together, breathless with laughter and want. "A little?"

"Ok, a lot of agony," he admits. His hand smooths possessively over the satin curve of her hip for a fraction of an instant before it retreats to a more socially acceptable height. He leans away, spinning her out to arm's length and back into his body. "The dress."

There's so much bound up in just those two words. Surprise and memory and history. Time wasted and time well spent. Stubbornness and the hard work of relenting on her side and his. Underneath it all, the immediate he agony of a story untold and desire. Always desire.

It quiets them both. One song comes to an end. They stop a few steps late. Their hands fall away from each other and drop to their sides. The uncertainty doesn't last a moment, though. He pulls her back toward him. She stumbles a little, and it might pass as resistance of anyone's watching. It might look like he's a little drunk and she's a little fed up with covering for him.

It might look like that, but she doesn't care. She's pouring the story into his ear. Disjointed phrases passing between them. A story surfacing like an island chain, because that's all they've ever needed.

"The loft?"

She nods and feels regret rumble through his chest. He plucks lightly at the web of laces, filling her head with images.

"My mother?"

It jerks her spine stiff. The seeming non sequitur that's definitely out of place where her mind has gone. She blinks at him, nervous suddenly. Giddy, though, too. It means a lot to her. How this came to be tonight. It will mean more to him. She knows that, and she has trouble finding her voice.

"Alexis." She's the one to turn them awkwardly this time. Too fast for the song, but she wants the shadows of this particular corner. She wants to hide with him in plain sight, and when she's satisfied, she lets her fingers drift to the pretty, twinkling combs in her hair. She lets them drift to the warm weight of garnets that sit, just so, on her collarbones. "But Martha played her part."

"It's beautiful. You're beautiful."

It's a stammered whisper. Tension in his arms as he tries to maintain the gap between them. Answering tension in her own, because it's smart. It's the plan and the last thing she wants to think about right now. The last thing she wants intruding on this, so she sinks her fingers into the moment and holds on. She tips her face up toward his and meets his eyes, clear and bright, even in the shadows.

"I wanted you to know . . ." Her voice fails her utterly this time. He tightens his fingers at her waist in sympathy. In a gesture meant to say it can wait, but she doesn't want it to. She breathes deep and goes on. "I wanted you to know I haven't forgotten. How we got here and how hard we fought." Shame gets the better of her. Guilt. "You fought, mostly." She pushes past it with another shuddering breath. "I won't forget."

He's silent a long time. She sees his pulse pounding in his throat and the labored rise and fall of his ribs. She feels the warmth radiating off his skin, and she doesn't know if she's grateful for it or not. For his silence.

"Come home with me." The careful words are hardly more than air stirring against her skin. "Tonight." He lets one finger, then another tangle through the laces low on her spine and the words come more quickly. More urgently, and there's no doubt at all she's grateful for this. "We'll . . . we'll figure something out. Just come home, Kate."

"It's a risk," she smiles down at their feet. They're hardly even shuffling now, and she wonders absently what it looks like from the outside.

"I know. It's a terrible idea." He smiles, too. She doesn't look up. She doesn't need to. She feels it running through his whole body. "But I want you with me."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: And finished. The original idea came from a conversation with Cora Clavia about how the red dress must have survived the bomb and fire and should make a reappearance with better hair. So: stolen. Also, I literally only realized this morning that this is the same basic idea as Morbidezza, so I've already written it. Oh well. I thank you all anyway for reading and supporting.

**Author's Note:**

> Next two chapters up in a few days. Thanks for reading/supporting.


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